Coinbase Busy Adding Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic Support?

Coinbase appears to be adding support for new cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) to its API list — giving their followers hope full support is coming soon. Inclusion for storage or full trading on the world’s most popular cryptocurrency platform would be a huge boost to either token.

Coinbase Hints but No Official Support Yet

To date, Coinbase hasn’t announced any definite support for BCH or ETC, both of which resulted from blockchain forks in more popular cryptocurrencies the company already trades. Recently, however, Coinbase said it would allow users to separate and hold BCH balances if they held bitcoin (BTC) at the time of the hard fork — August 1st 2017.

Just a few days ago, the company’s new president Asiff Hirji hinted at BCH support in a televised interview with CNBC. Bitsonline has also reached out to Coinbase to inquire about new currencies, though to date has not received any response.

Coinbase operates in 32 countries and claims to have over 10 million users worldwide. It’s the most popular cryptocurrency management and exchange platform in the U.S.

Both the images presented below are unconfirmed, and note there has been debate on chat platforms over whether they’re (a) genuine, or (b) new.

Eagle-eyed Coinbase users first noticed the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) wallet addition a couple of hours ago. The following image circulated widely on social media:

Soon after, a second image appeared — this time showing the addition of ETC and suggesting the changes were very fresh:

Prior ETC Withdrawals and Hard Fork Issues

At present, Coinbase supports only Bitcoin (BTC) Litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum (ETH). For a short time in 2016 it allowed withdrawals in Ethereum Classic (ETC), but discontinued that feature at the end of December that year.

Coinbase’s ease of use, buy/sell features and the ability to link directly to bank accounts in several of the countries in which it operates has helped these three tokens become the most popular in both value and mindshare. Inclusion on Coinbase’s platform is therefore considered a holy grail — and usually an unattainable one.

BCH and ETC are both minority-chain versions of their more famous namesakes. Both also claim to represent the “original vision” of their founders after the majority chains introduced radical (and to some, unacceptable) changes.

Bitcoin Cash has on-chain scaling via larger blocks and no SegWit. Ethereum Classic is Ethereum without the July 2016 blockchain rollback to “undo” the multimillion-dollar losses from the “TheDAO” hack. Since splitting from their siblings, both have also introduced other changes. However anyone who held coins on either platform before the forks received an equal amount of “free” tokens on the other chain.

Do you think Coinbase will support these and more currencies soon? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.